How to know it's God speaking to you??

Very glad to see Gabrielle Bossis getting a mention here! I'm a little over half-way through the Kindle English version of He and I (although will need to get the complete French original eventually), and all I can say is that if someone reads this and doesn't recognize the Lord's voice ... well, they need help! When Lui et Moi first came out at the end of the 1940s it was hugely popular in France; although it seems to have gone out of fashion somewhat in recent decades, there appears to be a new wave of interest in Gabrielle B., with the Pontifical University Regina Apostolorum hosting an international conference about her in 2013 (among her supporters are Cardinals Ruini and Re). Like so much twentieth-century mystical material, it may well be that He and I's hour of glory still lies ahead...

What is very striking if you are familiar with the genre of spiritual dialogues like this (e.g. Elisabeth Kindelmann, Luisa Piccarreta or True Life in God) is how many of the same themes Jesus mentions - the similarities leap out at the informed reader - of which I suppose the foremost has to be the intimate oneness to which He calls the believer.

 

I read 'He and I' many many years ago , Peter and was deeply touched by it. I was surprised later on reading her life story what a very active and public life she led compared to such a very deeply prayerful, contemplative/mystical inner one.

One story she told touched me deeply, I thought it was so beautiful. She was sitting in a train which was in the main train station in Bologna, Italy. (For those who do not know Bologna is to the present day fully Communist controlled). She was praying and talking to Jesus. Jesus indicated the huge bust station with hundreds of people and then He told Gabrielle,

'Do you know you are the only one in this whole place who is thinking and praying of me?'

I found this very,very touching. Sometimes when I used to pray myself in a busy place like the City Centre I used to look around me and wonder...'..am I the only one praying''?

Even still it is a kind of joy to me after mass when I look around the big huge Church after mass and find myself alone and think to myself that I have Jesus all to myself.

I would say this prayerful intimacy with Jesus, 'The Kingdom within'. is the very,very heart of the Christian Mystical Experience. It distinguishes itself for instance from descriptions I have read of ..say the Zen Buddhist , or Islamic/Sufi experience. Jesus is the centre.

I am rattling on here.....

 

I am a yes to the sensation too. And it comes in different intensities too. It is usually to affirm something, like when I asked Our Lady if she wanted me to consecrate myself to her. But also recently I got that physical sensation regarding my brother. When I went to Medjugorje in 2003 to pray especially for his conversion, I bought rosary beads for him, which I put in a bag in my closet, presuming he would be "ready" at some point for me to give them to him as he would have rejected them in '03. Well, as people here know, he recently died and I never gave them to him nor was he even aware I was ever in Medjugorje and bought beads for him. So, a few weeks ago I remembered those beads were in my closet and I got them to start using. When I took them out of the bag...wow, that physical feeling was intense...so I believe he was with me at that moment...only in a better place!!

I often get locutions, and they are just very short simple sentences for something I was dealing with at that moment. I believe it is actually a compliment if you do not get them, because for me they are always to try to take away a fear or let me know that I am not trusting. So, I get them because I am so weak in my faith and trust